Friday, April 6, 2018

Fiction Friday: March Progress Report

A funny thing happened on my way to accomplishing my March goals: I was notified that the second book in my Touched by a Demon series, The Demon’s in the Details, is a finalist for RWA’s® 2018 Golden Heart® award.

So, yippee!

I know that I can’t really claim that an event that didn’t occur until 3/4 of the way through the month constitutes a valid excuse for making so little progress on my goals, but it really was a complete distraction from March 21st onward.

Three years ago, when The Demon Always Wins was a finalist (under the title Demon’s Don’t), I got a request to see the entire manuscript from one of the final round judges. The book was far from ready for prime-time, and the anonymous editor or agent that requested the manuscript never followed up.

I’m 95% certain that I want to self-publish, since I’ve already invested so much of my own money to get the editing and the covers done. But, because of that remaining 5%, I spent the past week doing some edits to The Demon’s in the Details so that if a judge wants to see it this time, what I turn in will be stronger than last time. So, I spent the last ten days of the month editing The Demon’s in the Details instead of writing The Demon Wore Stilettos.

My goals for March, as you may recall, were:

Get The Demon’s in the Details through developmental edit.

Status: Sent my manuscript off to Karen Harris, my developmental editor, on March 8th, right on schedule. To my knowledge, she hasn’t started work on it yet, but that’s out of my control. (Note about goals: It’s never wise to set goals that are not within your control.)

2. Get a draft of the cover for The Demon’s in the Details.

Status: Done. If you’d like to see it, along with the covers for the other two books in the trilogy, you can find them here.

3. Complete the scene list for The Demon Wore Stilettos.

Status: I have a list of 45 scenes. Marking this one “done” with the proviso that the goal should have read: Complete a draft scene list.

4. Complete 15,000 words on The Demon Wore Stilettos.

Status: So about that… I was in trouble with this goal long before I got the call from Farrah Rochon, telling me I’d earned the right to display the medallion you see at the top of this post. I wound up with 4000 words this month.

I got really stuck on how to get the party started. I’m clear on that now, but not optimistic enough to proclaim that it will be smooth sailing from here on out.

Still, she persisted.

Goals for April:

Write 15,000 words on The Demon Wore Stilettos.

Prep my first-ever newsletter to go out May 1. (If you’re interested in receiving it, you can sign up here.)

Design updated business cards with my branding to take to Denver for the RWA national conference in July.

Decide on some swag to put in the Goody room at the RWA national conference. We’ll talk about what makes good swag (in my opinion) in another post.

4 comments:

Signed up for your newsletter! You should put a signup form on your blog, too. :)

When you say the anonymous agent/editor never followed up, do you mean you sent in the manuscript and never heard from them again, or you didn't send the manuscript in? If you never sent the manuscript in, they won't follow up, but you could probably STILL send it in saying it's ready now! That's if you're even interested. And if you're not, why bother with the second book? Hmmm???